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Unvaccinated staff at long-term care facilities are behind the eight outbreaks of COVID-19 among those facilities on the Northern Olympic Peninsula, the region’s public health official said.
Seven long-term care facilities in Clallam County and one in Jefferson County on Friday are experiencing an outbreak of COVID-19, which has resulted in a combined total of 11 deaths among those residents in recent weeks, said the Dr Allison Berry, Health Officer for Jefferson and Clallam Counties.
Of the 11 deaths in long-term care facilities, five are residents of Clallam County and seven are residents of Jefferson County, Berry said Friday.
“We’ve had occasions where the initial introduction of the virus could have happened with a visitor, for example, but what allows it to spread so far are unvaccinated staff members,” Berry said.
Clallam County has had a total of 39 residents who died from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, while Jefferson County has killed 13 residents. Neither counties reported any new deaths on Friday.
Of the seven outbreaks in Clallam County, the largest continues to be at Sequim Health & Rehabilitation with a total of 65 cases, but the facility has not confirmed any new cases in the past week, for which Berry is “cautiously optimistic”.
The next largest outbreaks in Clallam County are reporting 26 cases and 19 cases, while the remaining facilities all have two to three reported cases of COVID-19 on Friday, Berry said.
The Jefferson County long-term care facility has so far reported 17 cases, Berry said.
An outbreak is classified as a location that has had at least two documented cases of COVID-19 with transmission in the facility.
Berry said she does not name facilities under investigation into the outbreak if they are able to contact trace of those exposed unless they publicly confirm it themselves.
Unvaccinated staff
COVID-19 is widely spread in long-term care facilities by unvaccinated staff members, Berry said.
“In these facilities they are already often understaffed and therefore a positive individual staff member interacts with many patients throughout the facility, and so by the time we know a person is positive they have already exhibited 30/50 people, ”Berry said.
Many residents of long-term care homes on the peninsula are vaccinated against COVID-19, but due to age and other health issues, their immune systems do not respond sufficiently to the vaccine to fully protect them from the disease. new coronavirus, Berry said.
About 50% of long-term care staff on the peninsula are vaccinated against COVID-19, and all staff must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 18 due to a previous vaccination mandate from the Governor Jay Inslee requiring all health and long-term care staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Those who are not fully vaccinated have until October 4 with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine to be fully vaccinated – which is considered two weeks after the final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine – or must have already started the process vaccine for Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, because these require two doses taken three and four weeks apart respectively, Berry said.
“These people had not yet been vaccinated and the results are disastrous,” said Berry.
New cases
Clallam County added 57 new cases of COVID-19 on Friday, bringing its total number of cases to 3,815 since the start of the pandemic. As of Friday, the county’s case rate was 1,232 cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks, according to county public health data.
Jefferson County added eight new confirmed cases on Friday, bringing its total number of cases to 914 since the start of the pandemic.
Jefferson County calculates its case rate every week and the new case rate will be reported on Monday.
Officials do not update COVID-19 data on weekends, and at the moment most of the weekend public health officials’ time is spent on outbreak suppression, Berry said.
As case rates begin to stabilize and slow in both counties, rates are still extremely high and pose a high risk to the community, but the behaviors of residents following restrictions and public health advice such as the wearing the mask, social distancing and avoiding indoor gatherings, as well as the effects of the restriction on indoor meals being vaccinated, customers only seem to show, Berry said.
“It’s still a lot, but it’s definitely improving,” Berry said. “What seems to be driving this plateau are changes in people’s behavior and the use of common sense methods that reduce transmission.”
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Jefferson County reporter Zach Jablonski can be reached at 360-385-2335, ext. 5, or at [email protected]
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